Collegium Illustrious

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Collegium Illustre in Tübingen was a ducal court school from 1559, a high school from 1594 to 1596 and a knight academy for young aristocrats from 1596 to 1688 .

The Collegium illustrious - from “Illustrissimi Wirtembergici Ducalis Novii Colegii… delineatio” (around 1607; etching by Ludwig Ditzinger after a drawing by Johann Christoph Neyffer )
View of today's Wilhelmsstift , formerly Collegium illustre, from the tower of the collegiate church
Inner courtyard of today's Wilhelmsstift, facade with the exception of the east wing from the time of the college

history

prehistory

The Tübingen Franciscan Monastery , which was founded in 1272 and also housed a general course of study for the order , was located at the point in Ammertal where the Wilhelmsstift rises today . In the 15th century this general course gained importance thanks to its learned lecturers. Soon after its abolition in 1535 during the Reformation , it burned down partially in 1540.

Court school

In 1559, Duke Christoph von Württemberg (1515–1568) had a court school set up in the remaining buildings, the first knight academy in the German-speaking area, which was supposed to prepare young nobles for civil service. Its Württemberg Great Church Ordinance of 1559 designated the former monastery building as a Protestant monastery for the training of state officials. The new facility was probably opened in the same year. There were separate lectures, independent of the university , but also classes in dancing, horse riding, fencing and ball games.

high school

Duke Christoph, a deeply religious Lutheran , planned the expansion of the school into a university and had the four-wing complex built in the late Renaissance style by the Württemberg master builder Georg Beer in the years 1588–1592 . At the corner of Langen Gasse and Collegiumsgasse is the coat of arms of the Duchy of Württemberg from 1593 above the portal of the building. Duke Christoph died in 1568, and it remained for the successor of his son Ludwig (1554–1593), the Duke from the French-speaking Mömpelgard Frederick I (1557–1608) reserved the right to open the college on April 25, 1594 under the name Collegium illustre. The first students were accepted on that day. According to the statutes of April 23, 1594, both aristocrats and commoners could enter.

Lecture hall
Library
Fencing training
Jeu de Paume in the ballroom

Two years later, on April 23, 1596, Duke Friedrich changed the statutes, so that now, in addition to regional children, nobility offspring from all over Europe (from 1609 only from the Holy Roman Empire ), but contrary to the original intention, no more civil pupils were admitted. It became a knight academy. In 1601 it was completely separated from the university and then existed as a legally and administratively independent exempte corporation within the city for the exclusive education of noble offspring. Instead of a learned director, the director was now a noble high steward . At this academy, in accordance with the noble educational ideal of the time, in addition to horse riding , vaulting , fencing and dancing and in addition to the university's humanistic teaching program, history, politics, jurisprudence ( Roman law , feudal law , constitutional law ), natural sciences and modern foreign languages as well as military technology and fortification were taught .

The arcades and the spacious gallery courtyard were used like “stadiums” of the Renaissance for a wide variety of events. While they were practicing in the courtyard, one could watch from the floors. The ballroom was located in the southeast of the building . This is where the Jeu de Paume , a ball game, took place. A net stretched across the depths of the room, as in tennis , where it met a gallery built into the room on one side, the pent roof of which was part of the playing field. In this gallery and also from the windows, the audience followed the action.

Until its temporary closure in 1629 due to the Thirty Years' War , the occupation of the Duchy of Württemberg by the Catholic League and the edict of restitution by Emperor Ferdinand II , the Collegium illustrious was the preferred training center for the Protestant nobility from all over Europe, with an enormous beam and attraction to Scandinavia , Poland , Hungary and the Habsburg lands . During the temporary re-Catholicization , when the Jesuits resided in the city, there were even attempts to convert the Collegium illustre into a Jesuit college , but that never happened.

Last years

After Duke Eberhard III in September 1648 . His eldest son, the Hereditary Prince Johann Friedrich, had been sent to Tübingen and a few other ranks of the noble families had subsequently been accepted there, the Collegium illustrious was officially reopened in 1653 with the appointment of professors. However, it could no longer build on its earlier heyday, and it could not match the splendor of other famous educational institutions. It was not possible to develop a workable educational concept because it was tailored too directly to the immediate needs of a knight school. Renewed chaos of war was not conducive to development. In 1678, the last year of the Dutch War , the institution had to be temporarily closed. And already in 1688, after the beginning of the Palatinate War of Succession and the invasion of the troops of the French King Louis XIV , the school was finally closed. The last collegiate was posted on November 2, 1688 expelled .

Prince's hostel and end

After that it was only used as a hostel for princes from Wuerttemberg who were studying in Tübingen and as shelters for princes and diplomats. However, its privileged status was retained until 1817, and professors continued to be appointed to the college to teach as extraordinary lecturers at the university, and the university openly advertised the language teachers who were illustriously paid at the college . The fencing, dance, ball and riding masters taught the students, and the mathematics and physics collections were also available to the university. The last chief steward was dismissed in 1810 and in 1817 the Collegium Illustre was finally dissolved.

Subsequent use of the facility

The buildings were then used to house the newly built theologian convict of the then Rottenburg diocese , which was renamed Wilhelmsstift in 1821 at the request of the student body .

Well-known lecturers

literature

  • Wolfram Hauer: Local school development and urban living environment: the school system in Tübingen from its beginnings in the late Middle Ages to 1806. (Contubernium. Tübingen contributions to the history of universities and science, No. 57). Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden / Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-07777-4 , pp. 175-183.
  • Inge Jens and Walter Jens : A German University. 500 years of the Tübingen Republic of Scholars . 2nd edition, rororo, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-61690-4 ; therein pp. 211–216: The Collegium illustre: Bloom and Decay of the Adels College .
  • Silke Schöttle: "Men of the world. Exercise and language masters at the Collegium Illustre and at the University of Tübingen 1594-1819. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-17-031383-5 .

Web links

Commons : Collegium illustre  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Inge Jens and Walter Jens: A German University. 500 years of the Tübingen Republic of Scholars . 2nd edition, rororo, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, p. 213.
  2. ^ Statutes of the Collegium Illustre from 1594, Main State Archives Stuttgart
  3. ^ Statutes of the Collegium illustrious from 1596, Main State Archives Stuttgart
  4. ↑ in Germany there were 65 of these hall buildings.
  5. ↑ Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria had the library of the college transported to Munich.
  6. ↑ They moved to Rottenburg in 1649 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 31 '16.2 "  N , 9 ° 3' 18.5"  E